
Class J^IlMJA 

Book ■ 3)7 

Copyrights? _ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIK 



WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR? 



WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS 

OF THE 

REFORM-AGITATOR ? 



BY 



R. S* D^ 



CAMBRIDGE 

Prints at fyz JStoersitre Press 
1912 



£072 



COPYRIGHT, 191 2, BY RICHARD SYLVESTER DOW 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 
THE REFORM-AGITATOR? 

Sensation is the order of the day, and there 
is keen competition among those who wield the 
pen, or pose for the public eye. We become ac- 
customed to the bang of the anarchist and the 
drivel of the agitator. Occasionally, however, the 
ordinary citizen, striving to keep his mental 
equilibrium, meets with views so extreme, and 
flowing from a source so unexpectedly radical, 
that he is fairly jostled out of the even tenor of 
his way. 

This occurred not long ago upon the discov- 
ery, in a newspaper published in a small New 
England town, of these editorial views concern- 
ing the Lawrence strike : — 

RUSSIA OUTDONE 

By means of alluring literature and smooth-tongued 
agents, the ranks of the workers in " the Free land of 
America" are recruited from the u down-trodden" 
nations of Europe. Russia is an especially fertile field 
for the emigration agent. America is pictured as a 



2 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

free country where wages are high and the people 
free from political and official persecution. These 
agents are employed by an organization of employers 
of labor in order that there may be a steady supply of 
low-priced labor coming into the country all the time 
to combat the growing tendency toward higher wages 
and better living conditions. It is against the immi- 
gration laws of the United States to make an alien 
contract, but there are ways of evading the laws and 
lawyers to show these ways. 

Just at present these foreigners are being given a 
taste of what " Freedom " means in America at Law- 
rence. The Russian outrages of which we have read 
so much suffer little by comparison. The striking 
workers have learned that they must either work at 
starvation wages or starve on no wages at all. They 
must not gather to talk over their grievances. They 
must not speak to any working-man not a striker. 
They must not speak above a whisper. They are sur- 
rounded by a cordon of soldiers and armed policemen 
and any act of theirs is likely to be termed a " disturb- 
ance of the peace" and they are likely to be thrown 
into jail. Read the record of the Lawrence Police 
Court: Fines imposed for loitering on the street; for 
addressing slurring remarks at a soldier; for speaking to 
a strike breaker ; for making loud noises in public places ; 
for failure to return home when ordered by a police- 
man or soldier. These charges are " proved " by the 
mere assertion of the arresting officer and no denial is 
believed. In a word, the city of Lawrence is being 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 3 

governed by a military despotism, with the whole power 
of the State aimed at the breaking of the strike and the 
forcing of the workers back into the mills, without 
any change of conditions of labor being effected. 

The strikers have been denied the right to send their 
children out of the city where they may be safe from 
the scenes of disorder and where they may cease to be 
a burden to their parents during the progress of the 
strike. The Fugitive Slave Law was of no greater as- 
sistance to the slave-owners than the laws as they are 
interpreted and enforced in Lawrence. 

A strike leader is charged with murder and is in 
danger of the electric chair because he is alleged to have 
counselled violence on the part of the strikers and be- 
cause a woman was shot by a policeman or a militia- 
man during a riot. In order that the strikers may 
be deprived of his assistance in the carrying-on of 
the strike, he is held in jail without bail awaiting 
trial. 

Americans have condemned the Russian Govern- 
ment for its acts of cruelty and official oppression. We 
have invited the oppressed to come to our free shores 
and escape tyranny, and when they have gotten here they 
have found tyranny no less severe than that from 
which they believed they were escaping. 

Governor Foss has the power to put an end to these 
conditions at Lawrence, but he seems to be in no 
mood to do so. His alleged friendship for the people 
ends with election day and he becomes at once a part- 
isan of the class to which he belongs — the "Cap- 



4 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

tains of Industry " who hold dividends more sacred 
than human life. 

An effect was produced similar, probably, to 
that which would be experienced if the hands of 
time were to be suddenly set back several cent- 
uries ; and our citizen was moved to ask a few 
questions concerning the exact purport of the 
article and the attitude in general of the paper. 
These were his inquiries to the editor : — 

I read with much interest and care the editorial en- 
titled "Russia Outdone" appearing in the " 

" of February 29th ult. 

Is it possible that the little paper which seems to be 
endeavoring to place itself in the bosom of every fam- 
ily stands, in matters so serious as this, for conclusions 
which are based solely upon assumed premises ? 

That they are assumed is best illustrated by the 
fourth paragraph : — 

" A strike leader is ... in danger of the electric 
chair because he is alleged to have counselled violence 
on the part of the strikers and because a woman was 
shot by a policeman or a militiaman, during a riot." 

Have we come to the point where a case properly 
before the courts is to be tried and decided by our 
" — ," without a hearing ? 

The case of Mr. Ettor has not yet been heard. 
How, then, can the author of this article state as a 
cold fact that the deceased woman was shot by any- 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 5 

body in particular ? Why does the author distinguish 
between the allegation as to the counselling of vio- 
lence by Ettor and the allegation by Ettor that the 
woman was shot by a policeman or militiaman ? How 
does the author know ? 

In the second paragraph he makes a series of state- 
ments which to uninitiated minds are very apt to be 
taken pro confesso; " They must not gather to talk over 
their grievances ; they must not speak to any working- 
man not a striker; they must not speak above a whis- 
per. In a word, the city of Lawrence is being governed 
by a military despotism, with the whole power of the 
State aimed at the breaking of the strike and the forc- 
ing of the workers back into the mills without any 
change of conditions of labor being effected." 

Now, every one of those statements is open to con- 
tradiction ; and I am using the mildest terms possible 
under the circumstances. There is not and never was 
a law or rule in Lawrence or any other part of the 
United States of America to prevent people from 
gathering to talk over their grievances. There never 
was a law or a rule to prevent one man speaking to 
another, unless the speaker is obnoxious. Neither the 
people who want to work at Lawrence nor the author 
of this editorial, nor anybody else, is willing to be an- 
noyed. Every one of us has a right to attend to his 
own business and to demand that he be not molested. 

There is no such rule of law or of the police board 
or of the militia as would prevent a man speaking 
above a whisper. People have no right to raise a pub- 



6 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

lie riot ; they have no right to make themselves publicly 
obnoxious. They have no right to gather for the pur- 
pose of talking over their grievances in a way which 
constitutes a public nuisance or which prevents the 
transaction of business or the performance of labor. 

There is no desire on the part of the city of Law- 
rence or the militia or the mill-owners, or anybody 
else, to force the workers back into the mills ; they 
went out of their own accord and they are at liberty 
to stay out. 

If this editorial is intended to be an argument in 
favor of the right of any class of labor to coerce other 
laborers or other classes into adopting the dogmas and 
the views entertained by the first-named class, then I 

can see that the " " does not stand for the 

principles that it purports to uphold. 

The article is a diatribe against oppression. It and 
the " " call for freedom. Is it freedom to labor- 
ers who want to work to be coerced into idleness ? 

I have watched the progress of this sort of thing for 
a good many years. I have myself labored, on a farm, 
in a grain store, in a bank, in a law office — on wages 
and on salary. And I have been laboring ever since I 
reached a point where I became independent, so-called. 
To my way of thinking this editorial is absolutely un- 
fair and unjust. Not alone to the mill-owners and 
the city of Lawrence and the militia and the State 
Government, but to every reasoning, honest man in 
the United States of America. It is based upon prin- 
ciples absolutely false and unsound. And, while we 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 7 

cannot attack the logic, yet the premises are absolutely 
preassumed ; and most of the alleged facts, if not pure 
fiction, are yet to be proven. 

These " poor, down-trodden laborers," about whom 
this editorial makes such an outcry, are far better 
off, as a matter of fact, in this country than they were 
in the countries from which they came. The trouble 
is that there are in all countries certain people, depen- 
dent upon others for their means of livelihood, who 
do not appreciate the fact that the very presence of 
capital, and accumulation, aggregation and consolida- 
tion of it, through thrift, enterprise, and ability, is what 
gives them their employment. This class includes a 
good many young men who absorb the false doctrines 
of fanatics and unpractical people. This absorption, 
combined with just enough education to cause them 
to be dangerous to themselves as well as the public, 
and contaminated by a desire to emulate the example 
of many who, through thrift, or otherwise, have the 
ability to indulge in a little more extravagance in their 
way of living, is to a great extent responsible for these 
outbursts in the way of demands for more and more 
remuneration for work which is not worth any more. 
A friend of mine recently told me that on his way to 
and from business he had occasion to pass a boot-black 
parlor. That invariably, both at noon and at night, the 
place was filled with boys of sixteen, eighteen, twenty, 
or twenty-five years old, all of them with cigarettes 
or cigars in their mouths, waiting to have their shoes 
polished, at a cost of ten cents. That most of these 



8 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

young people are earning perhaps ten, fifteen, or twenty 
dollars a week. Is it necessary in these days for wage- 
earners to have their boots blacked by others while 
they sit and smoke a ten-cent cigar? 

What is the principal object behind most of the de- 
mands for increased wages ? Look at the moving pic- 
ture shows, the saloons, the cigar-stores, the boot-black 
emporiums ; look at the feathers on the hats, the mar- 
abou and silks on the backs, and you have the answer. 

It is very common to attribute all this trouble, which 
comes periodically at least in this country, to the capi- 
talist classes, so-called. From a sense of justice and 
fairness, and knowing both sides of the question, as 
I do know it and have known it for thirty-five years 
past, I have only this to say — that if there is no 
longer a premium on thrift, and if the principles, which 
the author of the editorial referred to seems to believe 
and advocate, are sound, and if this country is reaching 
a point where one man must not make any more than 
another, or if, as Mr. Ettor stated in open court, the 
production by labor belongs all of it to labor, we shall 
finish as we began when Plymouth Colony was set- 
tled, — by the resumption of a condition of society 
where everybody lived on his plot of land and made 
his own mittens and boots and jumpers ; and where 
there was no such thing as a laboring class, because, 
while all were laborers, all were independent, — com- 
mercially independent. 

If the author of that article can name any interme- 
diate point which can be reached by and through true 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 9 

principles of economics, and where everybody will be 
satisfied, it would be the basis of the most interesting 
editorial he ever wrote. 

I have read scores of articles, — by Bishop Potter, 
President Eliot, Samuel Gompers, John Mitchell, 
Morgan, Rabbi Fleischer, Roosevelt, and dozens and 
dozens of other people, in all walks of life, — articles 
written for the laboring class, so-called; articles in- 
tended to assist in the determination of the question 
constantly before us. I have never yet heard any one 
state in clear terms where the line is to be drawn ; 
and there, let me remind you, is where the trouble 
arises: namely, the uncertainty of it all. You can- 
not do business with uncertainties surrounding you. 
There must be fixed quantities, fixed values, some- 
thing tangible, upon which to construct progressive 
business. 

I do not wish to enter upon any discussion as to 
what constitutes a living wage. I would like to say 
this, however : no one of those workmen has died from 
hunger and no one of the families of those who wish 
to and are able to work has gone to a poor-house. 
Nearly every single one of the foreigners has sent 
money back to his native country. A Polish laborer 
said to a friend of mine, " You need never have any 
fear about the Pole ; after he has been here two years 
he will have a surplus of cash on hand." Now, what 
does that statement mean ? Why, it means that he 
has already become a capitalist. Everybody knows 
what the Italian is capable of doing ; and it is nobody's 



io WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

business what he lives on while he is doing it. I my- 
self looked over the books of the store on a cotton 
plantation in the delta of Arkansas, and saw innumer- 
able cases where Italians working on that plantation 
had sent and were sending back to banks in Italy, after 
a few years of labor, drafts amounting to one, two, 
three, and even four or five thousand dollars. 

And that leads to the silly distinction between capi- 
talist and laborer out of which so much material is 
made by the demagogue and the labor agitator; neither 
of them taking up the cudgels from a humanitarian 
standpoint, as a rule. 

We are all laborers as long as we live. We cannot 
escape it. We can all become capitalists by and through 
the means of thrift and industry and self-discipline, but 
we can never tear ourselves away from being laborers 
so long as we do any sort of business. I don't mean 
to include in this sweeping statement the idle rich, of 
which there are not so many in this world as has been 
generally supposed, and of which the number is be- 
coming smaller and smaller each year. Even on that 
point, if one wished to digress a bit, something could 
be said in favor of him who chooses to live upon a fixed 
income without doing any work. He certainly does not 
take business from the people in any profession which 
he might enter, nor does he take positions which can 
be filled by others who have less income. And finally, 
he settles his own problem because, if he is simply an 
idle person or what somebody designated as a " gentle- 
manly vagrant," he will gradually dwindle, mentally, 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR n 

physically, and probably morally, into a non-prolific 
nonentity. 

I would call the attention of the author of the editorial 
to a single principle out of many of economics which 
he either never knew or has not taken into account, 
and which is this, — the man who does the greatest 
good for the commonwealth, meaning the country as 
a whole, is not the man who throws his money away, 
or hoards it in a stocking, or spends it for no profit ; 
but the man who prudently invests his savings in en- 
terprises, — mills, railroads, factories, or retail business, 
— all of which give employment to others. 

If this editorial had had one saving point it might 
have been excusable. If the author had chosen to say, 
u I believe in socialism; I believe in labor unionism; 
I believe in labor standing up for its rights; I believe in 
laws that will cut down the opportunities for creating 
aggregations of capital in the hands of very few," and all 
that sort of thing, — it might pass as a mere expres- 
sion of opinion, and of an opinion in most of which 
all thinking men of sound judgment may concur. But 
neither he nor any other can ever hope to gain any- 
thing of value, for himself or the community, or the 
commonwealth, by advocating or condoning the de- 
struction of property or interference with commerce, 
or business, or the right of men to labor unmolested. 
I would not raise a finger or interpose a word of ob- 
jection to the article, if it entertained or admitted, or 
even alluded to, the real and basic principles of economics 
governing all relations of employer and employee. 



12 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

I believe I am as humane as any person, but there 
are certain fixed principles which must be observed by 
everybody if we are to continue to live under any 
civic contract. I do not say the laws cannot be bet- 
tered ; but while they stand on the books they must 
be observed, or the civic entity must fall. 

If it falls, does the author of this editorial believe 
that, with everybody on the same basis, there would 
be no advancement by certain members of society 
more rapid than by others ? Does he believe that, if 
those advances were rendered impossible by law, the 
progressive element would not fall back and the whole 
race deteriorate, until a state of things approaching 
barbarism would be reached ? 

Let the author amend his editorial by the single 
statement alone, that law and order must be maintained, 
and he then boils his argument down to the proposi- 
tion embodied in these questions, — Must a mill- 
owner employ labor whether he wishes to or not ? 
Must he stand by and see certain people interfere 
with the employment by him of such labor as he 
chooses to take in ? 

If these principles are to be established, we shall 
see business as dead as the renowned "Chelsea"; 
and if business is dead, who profits ? Does the la- 
borer ? Does the socialist ? Does the editor of a news- 
paper ? 

The letter was published in due form and 
with headlines which doubtless to the editor 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 13 

seemed appropriate, as the following editorial 
note was appended : — 

In spite of the fact that the above communication 
does not conform to our rules (which require that the 
name of the writer be signed to communications), we 
decided to print the above criticism, as it is a criticism 
of the editor and not of any reader of this paper. It 
was written by a lawyer of repute and doubtless his 
initials will identify him sufficiently to the majority 
of our readers. Not having the privilege of a legal 
education, the editor is at a disadvantage in answer- 
ing a criticism of this kind, but we freely admit that 
the arguments presented above are based upon an en- 
tirely different point of view than those upon which 
the editorial was founded, and it is our aim to get 
both sides of the case before our readers in order that 
they may form intelligent conclusions. As we have 
before stated, the purpose of the editor is not to un- 
duly emphasize his own views, but to encourage dis- 
cussion of this kind and we welcome criticism as well 
as commendation of the views expressed. As a mat- 
ter of fact, the editorial entitled "Russia Outdone" 
has been praised in many quarters as being well in 
accordance with the facts as they are generally under- 
stood, and writers of far greater prominence have 
expressed the same views. We cannot agree with 
the writer in condemning the extravagance of the 
wage-earners in liking good clothes and luxuries, 
while at the same time ignoring the extravagance of 



i 4 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

those who live upon the product of their labor. This 
question is too great to be settled by any mere coun- 
try newspaper editor, or even by any lawyer, no mat- 
ter how great his prominence, but the fundamental 
principle, that human rights are of more moment than 
property rights, must be conceded by all thinking persons. 

In the same issue of the paper appeared a 
letter from another subscriber, as follows : — 

A PLAUSIBLE PLEA FOR HIS CLIENTS 



CHALLENGED TO DEBATE 
WRITES FROM 



HIS VIEWS OF ARTICLE 

Editor : 

I read with much interest and care the editorial en- 
titled " Russia Outdone," and find it voices the senti- 
ment of all the editors whose expressions have come 
to my notice, and especially the leading journals of 
this state. 

" " has made a very plausible but misleading 

plea for his clients. The last paragraph of a Editor's 
Note" and the statement there made, that " the funda- 
mental principle that human rights are of more mo- 
ment than property rights," contains more truth than 
the entire article by a ." 

In no epoch of the world's history have such im- 
portant questions presented themselves, or been forced 
upon us, for solution as those that confront us at the 
very threshold of this new century. Shall we, in the 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 15 

solution, but repeat history, and see our nation de- 
stroyed ? No ! A thousand times no ! 

Our government can endure; our government must 
endure ; our government shall endure ; but it must be, 
and early become, a government " of the people, by 
the people, for the people." 

The fundamental law of such government shall be 
righteousness, the controlling spirit must be the 
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, ex- 
emplified in substance, not in form. 

Now, if" " is as eloquent with his tongue as 

he is facile with his pen, and honestly desires, or 
rather desires honestly, to enlighten your readers upon 
this great question so vital to all, and is willing to 
publicly discuss the issue, he shall be accommodated, 
and the public enlightened and entertained. 

And the same sheet contained this editorial : — 
TO " " 

There is a wide divergence of opinion in regard to 
the facts in relation to the Lawrence strike, and our 
friend who signed himself" " in a communica- 
tion in these columns last week may be classed among 
those who deprecate and deplore any attempt on the 
part of the working class to better wage conditions. 
The writer takes the editor of this paper to task for 
having expressed the opinion that the arrest of Ettor 
was an outrage, and alleges that a criticism of the 
courts was involved in the editorial, " Russia Out- 
done." He asks, " Why does the author distinguish 



16 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

between the allegations as to the counselling of vio- 
lence by Ettor and the allegation by Ettor that the 
woman was shot by a policeman or a militiaman ? M 
If we have read the records of the case correctly the 
woman was shot during the progress of a disturbance 
in which the police and militiamen used their revolv- 
ers to quell the riot, and there was no evidence to show 
that any of the strikers used firearms, their weapons 
being bits of ice and stones. Furthermore, we have 
always understood that in order to charge any person 
with being an accessory to a crime, it is first necessary 
to have a principal who committed the crime, and in 
this case no such principal is being tried. When the 
authorities go outside of the law in their efforts to en- 
force peace, we feel that we are justified in calling the 
act an outrage. If any one should be made amenable 
to law, surely it is those who have the enforcement 
of laws as their duty. The writer ignores entirely the 
arbitrary act of the chief of police of Lawrence in pre- 
venting the children of the strikers from leaving the 
city and the arrest of their mothers and their incarcer- 
ation in jail. Yet the chief of the Lawrence police, in 
the hearing at Washington, has stated that he knew of 
no specific law justifying his act. Again we charge 
the act as an act of persecution. 

The writer says, " Look at the moving-picture shows, 
the saloons, the cigar-stores, the boot-black empori- 
ums ; look at the feathers on the hats, the marabou 
and silks on the backs, and you have the answer." 
The answer to what ? To the question, " What is 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 17 

the principal object behind most of the demands for 
increased wages ? " Does the writer believe that the 
workers in the woolen mills of Lawrence spend their 
hard-earned money in riotous living, following the ex- 
ample of those who squander easily-obtained fortunes 
on whims and fancies ? He further states that none of 
these workmen has died from hunger. Is this a cause 
for congratulation ? Must a working-man die of hun- 
ger in order to entitle him to sympathy ? " Nearly 
every one of the foreigners has sent money back to 
his native country." Is this true ? How can they do it 
on the wages they receive and still have money left to 
get their shoes shined and clothe themselves with 
silks and marabou on a weekly wage of from $6 to 
$9 per week? 

" I believe I am as humane as any person, but there 
are certain fixed principles which must be observed by 
everybody if we are to continue to live under any civic 
contract . . . while the laws stand on the books they 
must be observed." To that we say aye. We agree 
with him in his statement, but we disagree with him 
in his application of the principles which seem to be 
applied by him to the laborers alone. We do not up- 
hold the laborer in his acts of violence ; but we con- 
demn those who meet violence with violence and law- 
lessness with lawlessness. 

We have no inclination to follow the example of 
our correspondent who takes three columns of space 
to refute the statements made in a half-column edi- 
torial. We hold no brief for either side of the question 



18 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

at issue. We do believe, however, that the mill-owners 
have created the conditions of which the workers com- 
plain and that they are pursuing wrong tactics in forc- 
ing an issue and using the methods which they have 
used. Before the law the word of a laborer is as good 
as the word of a millionaire, yet strikers have denied 
and policemen and militiamen have affirmed, and in 
every case the word of the policeman and the word 
of the militiaman have been accepted as truth in the 
Lawrence court and the arrested person has not been 
given the benefit of the doubt which the law allows. 

Fairly boiled down to its basic facts, the whole ar- 
gument of the writer is summed up in these words : 
" Let the capitalist alone; let him employ such labor 
as he chooses for such wages as he may choose to 
pay. If any one objects, let him starve." We hardly 
feel that the majority of our readers are in accord with 
these views. Most capitalists will admit that they have 
certain obligations to society and that society has a 
right to protect itself. The classing as anarchists and 
socialists all those who demand that a just rule be 
made governing those who employ labor as well as 
those who labor avails nothing, but only serves to fur- 
ther inflame class prejudice and hastens the day of 
the inevitable strife between capital and labor, the 
portent of which is in the sky at the present time and 
which can only be prevented by wise legislation and 
the establishment^ sound economic principles which 
will give capital its due and still be just to the worker 
who, after all, is the only creator of wealth. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 19 

It is very gratifying to know that editors of 
newspapers are willing to give space for outside 
views on a problem which is perplexing the 
minds of many people to-day. It is an old say- 
ing that a child can formulate a question to 
answer which would require a lifetime. The 
subjects treated in the foregoing editorials and 
correspondence have furnished themes for a 
complete library of literature. The strife between 
capital and labor has been with us for some time 
past. It is the reflection, not the portent, which 
one sees in the sky. 

It is interesting to note that the challenge to 
debate assumes, without any knowledge or 
grounds for the assumption, that the inquiries 
sent to the editor were "plausible and mislead- 
ing pleas for clients. ,, The writer thereof had 
no clients which 'needed any such plea. If his 
communication did not affect the public as a 
whole, it was not worth reading. The challenge 
mistakes the nature of the subject-matter, which 
is neither a campaign issue nor material for a 
revival meeting. Of all the questions which we 
in this world must pass upon, those under con- 
sideration should be treated most calmly and 
rationally. If either one of the disputants in 



20 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

public discussion were not shot or dynamited 
before he reached his peroration, it would be 
somewhat remarkable. These are not subjects 
for public debate. They demand the use of the 
soundest logic and of terms the least misleading. 
Not forensics but reason should be brought to 
bear. 

The inflaming of class prejudice can be 
brought about no more effectually than by the 
use of distorted economic principles, and vague 
and misleading generalities. 

Now, taking up a few of the points involved, 
let us briefly note that it would seem to be an 
axiom of the agitator that manual labor is harder 
than any other form of labor, if we are to judge 
by their outpourings of sympathy for the labor- 
ing-man. While independence is to be desired, 
of course, yet any man, who has been through 
the mill of manual labor and has subsequently 
reached the so-called independent stage, knows 
that the duties of the latter are fully as onerous 
as those of the former state. His work, like 
that of woman, is never done. The work of the 
manual laborer is practically from sun to sun, 
and a good deal less nowadays. 

It is a cause for congratulation that nobody 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 21 

at Lawrence has suffered for food and housing. 
Not that the conditions cannot be improved, 
but that they are far from being distressing, ex- 
cept in rare and unusual circumstances, and 
even then the remedy is open to those who 
desire to better their conditions. The great 
Western Country offers a vast field. Wages 
are high and living healthful there. 

Whether the laborer, or the clerk, or the 
saleswoman can dress and live in extravagant 
fashion on six dollars, nine dollars, or fifteen 
dollars per week and wear silks and marabou, is 
not the question. Many of them do dress and 
live extravagantly. And they want further lux- 
ury, to attain which they demand more and 
more in the way of remuneration for their serv- 
ices, regardless of the real value of those serv- 
ices. It may be reiterated, and emphatically, 
that one of the principal objects of the demands 
for increased wages is to procure this increased 
luxury and leisure. Not only do dependents 
emulate the style of living of more wealthy peo- 
ple, but they are coming to regard work — 
honest labor — that which all of our ancestors 
went through at some time — as beneath them. 
Within a week a porter in a downtown building, 



22 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

a youth of perhaps twenty years of age, was 
complaining about the nature of his work and 
the hours and the pay. It was the usual story 
that we hear on all sides. The porter was la- 
menting the chances which he had lost ; namely, 
those of greater education, and expressed the 
opinion that he could not be employed on any 
lower scale or grade than at present. Now, if 
that man had sufficient ambition and ability, he 
would do what thousands of others have done 
— prepare himself for better work. If he has 
neither the ambition nor the ability, what can 
he expect? and ought it not to be made clear 
to him that, if he will not or cannot raise him- 
self to a higher scale, he could not have done 
so earlier in life? "Content is wealth," said 
Socrates. 

In one of the editorials from which quota- 
tions have been taken, the thoroughly unjust 
statement is made that the whole argument of 
the writer of the communication referred to is 
summed up in these words: " Let the capital- 
ist alone ; let him employ such labor as he 
chooses for such wages as he may choose to 
pay. If any one objects, let him starve." Per- 
haps it might be not too much to ask that we 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 23 

let the capitalist and the laborer alone ; let the 
former employ such labor as he chooses and 
the latter work as he chooses, for such wages 
as they may agree upon. The article might 
support such a construction. But in all fairness, 
let us have both sides of the question and a 
clear understanding. 

It is true that no reply was made to the al- 
legations as to the culpability of the policemen 
at Lawrence, and as to the innocence of Ettor ; 
nor did the article take up the subject of the 
holding-up, by the authorities, of the children 
who were to be sent to New York and else- 
where for care. And this was for the reason 
stated in the first letter to the editor : namely, 
that it is not for the newspaper editor or any- 
body else to decide questions which belong to 
the established tribunals, or other authorities, 
to determine. If the I. W. W. had control of 
the government, these questions would be open 
to just such treatment as the editor seems to 
desire ; that is, they would be subject to the 
views of anybody and everybody, without any 
crystallization of those views and without any 
means of forcing the conclusion. 

It may be admitted that there is a question 



24 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

as to the right of the authorities to prevent the 
parents from sending their children out of Law- 
rence. The act was of very doubtful expediency 
and perhaps absolutely illegal. If so, one has 
simply to bear in mind that "there is no wrong 
without a remedy"; and if in the midst of the 
excitement anybody overstepped the bounds of 
his authority, the remedy will be open and 
ample, especially if they can show actual damage. 
In this connection, under our established prin- 
ciples of jurisprudence, it may be called to mind 
that if there was wrong without damage, the 
remedy is nominal. What damage can the par- 
ents show in this case, which appears to have 
been a mere technical overstepping of authority ? 
It is true that human rights may have been in- 
terfered with, but who suffered and how much 
did they suffer, is the question. Adequate rem- 
edy awaits. 

It would seem a fair contention that if I. W. W. 
agitators had not stirred up the workmen to 
the boiling-over point, the shooting would not 
have occurred. 

Here are some of the extracts from the con- 
stitution of that association. Do they tend to 
produce riots, dynamiting, and shooting? As 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 25 

Mr. Ettor and Mr. Giovannitti were disciples of 
this creed, did they, in all probability, take any 
part in bringing about the shooting complained 
of at Lawrence ? Does the reformer subscribe 
to these tenets ? 

We will take any and all means to attain our ob- 
ject. Right and wrong does not concern us. We will 
not obey the laws. We will employ military tactics 
to the fullest extent. 

It has been stated authentically that tenta- 
tive overtures were recently made to Mr. Ettor 
by a well-meaning and unprejudiced party ; one 
who desired to test all methods of producing 
peace and harmony in Lawrence and other tex- 
tile centres. This man suggested that perhaps 
the mills could be sold by the present owners 
and purchased by the labor interests, on some 
basis fair to everybody. The answer is reported 
to have been, " Buy them ! Why, when we are 
ready for that, we will walk in and take them ! " 
Such a position needs very little comment 
among reasoning men ; but there are many who 
will not or cannot reason, and to those one is 
tempted to put this question : Do you realize 
that the situation would be the same after such 
possession had been taken as before — with the 



26 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

parties reversed? What would prevent the 
masses of deposed capitalists (capitalists of great 
and of little means) from adopting the same ar- 
gument and following the same line of action ? 
The I. W. W. refuses to recognize principles of 
right and wrong. Would that be their attitude 
if they should acquire vested interests ? 

Extraordinary arguments are advanced by 
theorists and unpractical people as to the value 
of manual labor. For example, it is held by 
some that no man is entitled to live who does 
not make something with his hands. Is this 
possible ? No janitors, no overseers, no police- 
men, no professional men ? Does the man who 
fells the trees, or extracts ore from the ground, 
or manufactures a boot, make anything more 
important than the man who makes the plans 
for the timber operation and signs a check or a 
note for the expenses of the season; or he who 
takes his chances by investing his savings in a 
coal-mine, which gives employment to thou- 
sands of miners ; or he who builds a factory out 
of the money he has avoided spending, thereby 
assuring a livelihood to thousands of workmen ? 
Is no man entitled to retire on the savings of a 
lifetime? Must he go on working until he 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 27 

drops, and then give up all he has laid by in 
the way of property, or should he spend all he 
makes as he goes along through life ? 

If the claim referred to means that no man 
is entitled to live who does absolutely nothing 
except to spend more or less of the income of 
his capital, it might pass without comment. 
But, on the other hand, as has been stated, such 
a person certainly does not deprive others of 
the work which he might do, and his invested 
capital does furnish employment to others. One 
does not have great sympathy with the idle 
rich, but it is not absolutely an unanswerable 
argument that they are not entitled to live. 

It is further claimed by these theorists that 
labor is not a commodity. It is a commodity 
in a sense; even that part of it which is given 
in exchange for the bare living which the 
world owes every man. 

The services of the laborer are not different 
in this respect from those of the professional 
man; from those of the skilled artisan; from 
those of the capitalist. These all have com- 
modities to be bought and sold. If the demand 
for the services of the capitalist falls off, he 
must reduce his rates. In times of depression, 



28 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

the product of the artificer is reduced in price. 
If the doctor, lawyer, or architect cannot earn 
enough' to maintain himself in the way he 
desires, he must try for more patients or 
clients by reducing his rates; or he must seek 
other fields. The product or services rendered 
are commodities; just as is the service of 
labor. 

Material contained in newspapers, and edi- 
torial views, are far-reaching, as everybody 
knows. They are laid before the thinking and 
the unthinking alike, — those qualified to weigh 
and sift the subject-matter and those who are 
apt to take all such literature as indisputable 
fact. Many people, while able to read and un- 
derstand the bare statements as expressed, are 
unable to read between the lines; unable to test 
their soundness by true principles of politics, 
religion, economics, or whatever the subject- 
matter may involve. 

The impression received upon reading the 
original editorial raised the question: Should 
such views upon matters so serious be distrib- 
uted broadcast among readers, seventy-five per 
cent of whom, at least, have never even in- 
vestigated the principles of economics.? Those 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 29 

readers may qualify themselves and become en- 
titled to form opinions ; but the question is too 
important to be used simply as a means of arous- 
ing prejudice. 

In this connection, these words of the late 
Charles Eliot Norton are a valuable support : — 

We are intrusting the fortunes of the community 
and of the nation to the common sense of the people of 
the nation, and that will not always save. The common 
sense of the man with only a common-school edu- 
cation will not always be a safe guide. We see that 
in the many discussions of the currency question, in 
the vast number of opinions on a question which can 
be wisely dealt with only by experts. We hear a 
self-conscious man say that his opinion is as good as 
that of any one. There is in this country a lack of 
respect for expert opinion which is likely to bring 
upon the country great disaster. This view may be 
pessimistic, but there is much in it to think seriously 
of, now that we hear the cry, "Let the people rule." 
The words of the old Greek philosopher, when no 
doubt the demagogue was working overtime, are worth 
listening to: "Mankind is a gaping monster, seeking 
to be deceived and seldom disappointed." 

To disseminate ideas which are contrary to 
the beliefs and experiences of centuries, with- 
out a word of explanation, is apt to be a dan- 
gerous method of educating or influencing the 



3 o WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

masses. Nothing is gained by opposing doc- 
trines of economics reached after centuries of 
thought and study, after turmoil and bloodshed 
and reconstruction. 

A series of speeches by President Butler of 
Columbia College, which have been recently 
published in book form, and of which the title 
essay is " Why Should We Change our Form of 
Government," elucidates some of the established 
principles referred to in this review, and com- 
ments upon some of the modern or progressive 
notions which, if followed, will, as anybody may 
see, bring us back to the original starting-point, 
with the work to be all done over again. As 
"The Sun" of New York expresses it, "to 
adopt a favorite figure of speech upon the lips 
of a recent convert to pure democracy, it is the 
sad truth that the initiative, referendum, and 
recall make the flint-lock look like a new and 
shining weapon." 

The address of Miss Vida Scudder, at a 
meeting in Lawrence, probably not accurately 
reported, was in several places severely criti- 
cized. It has, however, been defended and ex- 
plained in a very just letter to the "Boston 
Transcript" by John Graham Brooks. From 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 31 

the criticisms, that speech might have been sup- 
posed to entertain just such sentiments as those 
to which attention is now being called. Injustice 
to her, and because it throws some light upon 
the extent and character of the sympathy which 
we all feel for any people or class of people who 
are in the slightest danger of being unfairly 
treated or down-trodden, I venture to quote 
from the speech: — 

Only, my friends, let us see to it that all our suf- 
fering be indeed for justice, for righteousness' sake. 
Riot, even under severest provocation, does not make 
for justice. See to it, you citizens, that you keep an 
impartial mind, quick to compassion, free from preju- 
dice, divorced from all apathy and irresponsibility, for 
a great trust is yours. 

And see to it, you strikers — you who struggle on 
with the thought of the vast army of all tongues and 
nations in whose name and for whose sake you are 
banded together — see to it that you hold your task 
too sacred to be defended by low, dishonorable, or 
violent means. 

Mr. Brooks writes that, being present, he 
felt, upon leaving the meeting, that Miss Scud- 
der's speech " from its first to final word was a 
kind of passionate beseeching to the audience 
for ethical self-restraint." 



32 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

Mr. Dooley says: — 

If the coort rules a law unconstitutional, Tiddy sez 
to the folks, " all ye ought to do is to vote the coort a 
liar." It 's the new way fur mindin' the Constitution. 

Suppose the recall on decisions should be given to 
the bleachers whin the umpire rules against the home 
team ? 

Hennessey, I 'm thinking of taken* me little savin's 
and movin' back to the ould land of piece and quiet, 
fer it 's my opinion the Irish nerves was nivir intinded 
fer anny sich rows as are broom' over here. 

A well-known Boston paper closes an edi- 
torial, entitled " Smashing Civilization/ 1 as fol- 
lows : — 

The travail of ages has gone to the substitution of 
peaceful for warlike methods of securing social pro- 
gress, and unless human societies are to be totally dis- 
organized they must continue to repress the mistaken 
zeal — call it "mental twist," hysteria, or what you will 
— which at this late day deliberately justifies a return 
to the methods of savagery. War is unfortunately still 
possible between the nations, but within them it has 
been effectually extinguished. The attempt to revive 
it as an agency of reform is an attack on the interests 
of the race. The attempt to promote the so-called 
welfare of a class or of a sex by breaking windows 
and damaging property is an attempt to smash civil- 
ization. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 33 

Another Boston publication, under the title 
"The Price of Ignorance," states, in part: — 

Whether or not such deplorable incidents are the 
inevitable accompaniment or outgrowth of the rising 
tide of socialism, the lesson that is forced home is the 
need of grappling with a social problem, which, ne- 
glected, involves ultimate revolution. 

Perhaps the mentality standard of our immigration 
laws, under which the vicious and ignorant may be al- 
lowed to spread the infection of their degeneracy upon 
our civilization, is too low. Perhaps there should be 
less indifference with respect to the principles of com- 
pulsory education. In any event, it will not be denied 
that many of our modern-day ills, more particularly 
those that pertain to the solution of our social and 
economic questions, have their beginnings in the dis- 
torted minds of the ignorant. 

The rank and file of the strikers at Lawrence, for 
instance, have little or no conception of the great 
economic problems with which their employers are 
struggling earnestly and conscientiously. They are 
told in the inflammatory language of the agitator that 
the heels of the manufacturers are mercilessly grind- 
ing into their vitals, and in the twinkling of an eye a 
peaceful community is transformed into a howling, 
lawless mob. 

The ignorance of the millhand is at the bottom of 
the trouble. He will not see the other side because in 
verity he cannot ! 



34 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

Such expressions of opinion (and many others 
could be furnished on the subject) indicate that 
not all writers of prominence agree with our 
radical New England editor and his followers. 
It would be interesting to know how small a 
minority of thinking men belong to that radical 
class. Some day we may have it put to test, — 
by the ballot, let us hope. 

Here is an interesting retrospect by the de- 
scendant of a Lowell weaver: — 

SOME OF THE THINGS THAT MAKE THE 
COST OF LIVING HIGH 

To the Editor of The Herald: — 

If you were to attend a socialist meeting, or a Ford 
Hall gathering, you would be told that the working- 
class of this country do not get enough to live and 
that times are growing worse all the time, and more 
especially since the textile strike in Lawrence, do you 
hear of these calamity speeches. Let 's look at a few 
facts : It is recorded that 9000 operatives in Lowell 
received an average of $1.50" a week in 1843. ^ n 
1850 my mother was employed as a weaver in the 
Lowell mills, and she was a good weaver, too. She 
made an average of $2.50 a week and paid $1.25 a 
week for board and room in a corporation boarding- 
house. The hours were long, 11 to 12 a day. The 
average wage in Lowell and Lawrence to-day is at 
least four times as much as it was in 1850-55. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 35 

The average wage in the manufacturing industry 
in this country in 1850 was $247 ; in 1880, it was 
$348; in 1900, it was $437, and in 1910, it was 
$539o an d tne hours of labor have been reduced from 
66 and 70 in 1850 to 54 and 60 in 1910. So much 
for that. Now let us look at the cost of living. In 
the city of Lawrence the workers of the so-called 
u foreign element " sent to Europe last year more 
than $700,000; they spent a million dollars in the 76 
saloons, i.e., the working-class of that city spent a 
million for drink, and another $100,000 in the pic- 
ture-show houses. For the nation these items of waste 
foot up : $1,700 ,000,000 spent in the saloons ; $275,- 
000,000 spent in the moving-picture shows; $135,- 
000,000 for candy; $500,000,000 for tobacco; and 
the immigrants sent to Europe $300,000,000. Out 
of these sums the working-class spent at least $1,300- 
000,000, or 13 billions in 10 years, yet, we are told 
by sociologists that unless we have a radical change, 
the red flag revolution will engulf us. 

The cost of living is high, but it is high mainly 
because we all want the things which the middle class 
enjoyed 30 years ago. The working-class live far 
better than the middle class lived 50 and 75 years 
ago. Everybody is glad that this is so, and notwith- 
standing this, we increased our savings bank deposits 
by $2,000,000,000 during the last 10 years and there 
have been 900,000 new homes acquired in this pe- 
riod. Men are rising from the working-class to the 
middle class and from the middle class to the so-called 



36 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

wealthy class more rapidly to-day than ever before in 
the economic history of this nation, but we must have 
sensation and muckraking. 
Haverhill, April 10 

The question is not too large for a news- 
paper editor, or a lawyer, or any educated man. 
But the solution is too difficult for anybody, 
whether educated or not, unless he will take into 
consideration all of the factors in the problem 
and give due weight to the teachings of centu- 
ries and of pragmatic history. These burning 
questions should be analyzed and discussed 
economically — scientifically — and never by 
naked opinion. 

Nobody in his right senses will claim that the 
extravagance of workers is the sole reason for the 
demand for wage increase. Extravagance has 
very much to do with the matter ; because if 
wage-earners insist upon spending all they make, 
they will go on forever demanding more, whether 
the work is worth it or not. Of course there are 
cases of injustice, but where these are brought 
to light clearly, they are in almost every case 
alleviated. 

We do not expect to pay skilled-labor wages 
to ignorant laborers. Abnormal and artificial 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 37 

conditions seldom produce good results in any- 
thing. All things are relative and all things are 
graded, and it will be so no matter what form of 
government, no matter what system of employ- 
ment. You cannot maintain everybody on the 
same level under all conditions, any more than 
you can make water run uphill. 

The statement that all men are free and equal 
is true only so far as it applies to the opportunities 
open to al/ y and to their right to enjoy certain priv- 
ileges guaranteed by the civic contract. In all or 
nearly all other respects all men are not free and 
equal. This is demonstrated in every country 
and under every form of government, from the 
savage to the highest type. Some men are in- 
ferior to others, and until they have made them- 
selves equal they must grade their value as citizens 
in accordance with their abilities. Nowhere is this 
difference so clearly shown as in India, where the 
principle of caste is indigenous. And it is in In- 
dia that British rule is so strenuously attacked; 
— not so much, indeed, by the natives of that 
country as by outside agitators. 

We in the North make a great deal of clamor 
about the treatment of the negro. A Southerner 
recently resigned from a certain club in the North 



38 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

because he found members of the colored race 
seated in the same dining-room with him. When 
a Northern friend was rather inclined to remon- 
strate with him, the Southerner said, " You, in the 
North, are hypocrites ; you don't invite negroes 
to your houses and to your tables, nor do you 
want them there. " 

Nothing in these two paragraphs is intended 
to decry or underestimate the value and useful- 
ness and respectability of any man, in any class, 
in his place. But all men are not free and equal 
for all purposes, and many men are not entitled 
to the same recompense, consideration, or lati- 
tude of action that others receive and enjoy. 
They would not know how to adapt themselves 
to conditions which are the natural state of other 
men. All men are entitled to equal opportuni- 
ties, so far as they are able to grasp them. It 
maybe true that all men are born free and equal, 
though I cannot concede the proposition Jn its 
entirety. But beyond that, certainly the saying 
is absolutely without merit. If they are born 
free and equal, it is because equal rights and 
privileges and protection are open to all ; and 
not because all are or ever will be qualified to 
grasp the same opportunities. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 39 

We cannot hope to continue business so as 
to benefit all people if we place on the very same 
basis brains, enterprise, thrift, and industry, on 
the one side, and pure manual labor without 
training and skill and influence, on the other. 
And the laborer would suffer most of all from 
such an attempt. 

Could any one claim that any business enter- 
prise would succeed as well without brains and 
energy to direct it? The demand of the reformer 
to-day seems to be that the brains now guiding 
such enterprises must relinquish all rights in order 
that certain disgruntled members of the labor- 
ing-class, so-called, may select other brains. Not 
only that, but the guidance and control must 
be relinquished without recompense for former 
service as founders and guides. Labor wants a 
change of navigators regardless of what the 
consequence will be. It must be clear to them 
that they cannot direct the affairs of enterprise. 
Therefore, under any new regime they must 
still be subject to somebody's guidance. Some- 
body must formulate and execute the policies 
of business. The ignorant man, he who per- 
forms and can perform manual labor only, could 
never satisfactorily control and carry to success 



40 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

such policies. Does such a man suppose that the 
new navigator will produce results which will 
give such control ? 

Industries are run by brains and to brains is 
due in a large measure the success of those in- 
dustries. When retained in tangible form that 
success is wealth. Labor assists in the accumula- 
tion of that wealth, but labor is not entitled to 
all of it. To what extent it should share is not 
ascertainable by arbitrary rule ; certainly not by 
the ukase of a socialistic reformer. 

In the first century of the Christian era, I 
think, the share deemed reasonable by econo- 
mists, and that which existed, was about twenty- 
two to twenty-five cents out of every dollar of 
gross earnings. Without claiming that the fol- 
lowing is the percentage in all other lines of 
manufacturing and industry, in a large New 
England railroad every dollar of gross income 
from all sources during the year 191 1 was dis- 
tributed as follows: — 

For Material and Supplies 

$ >ioj4 fuel for locomotives ; 

.02^ rails and ties ; 

.183^ other material, supplies and expense; 

.04^ taxes ; 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 41 

.04 interest on debt and sinking-fund ; 

.11^ leases and rentals; 

.02 car expense per diem ; 

.01 office salaries; 

.00^ available for dividends; 

.44^ FOR WAGES. 

It would probably not occur to the editors of 
radical and agitating newspapers that they are 
robbing their employees ; that, as labor is en- 
titled to all it produces, the reporters and the 
typesetters and the printer's devil should get 
all the revenue received by the paper. That is 
the principle which those papers are advocating 
— applied to other industries, of course. 

Thomas Edison works, it is reported, from 
about six in the morning until midnight, with 
two or three hours out for necessary recupera- 
tion, and he is reported as saying, " I never had 
an idea in my life ; I have no imagination. My 
so-called inventions already existed in the en- 
vironment — I took them out. The drone lets 
them lie there while he goes off to a baseball 
game." 

In the February, 191 1, number of the "At- 
lantic Monthly" appeared a noteworthy essay 
by Cornelia A. P. Comer, which is addressed to 



42 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

all youth of the present day regardless of rank 
or station. While it should be read in its en- 
tirety, I have selected a few excerpts as appli- 
cable to the questions we are considering. She 
asks : — 

Is the quality of the human product really falling 
off? If the suspicion which runs about the world is 
true, then youngsters, as you would elegantly phrase 
it, " It is up to you." . . . 

When the rising generation goes into the militia, it 
is — old officers tell us — "soft" and incompetent. 
Advocates of athletics and manual training are doing 
their utmost to counteract the tendency to make flabby 
fastidious bodies which comes from too comfortable 
living ; but the task is huge. . . . 

Before it occurred to me to analyze your defi- 
ciencies, I used to look at a good many members of 
the rising generation and wonder helplessly what ailed 
them. . . . They talked of themselves as socialists ; 
but their ideas of socialism were vague. To them, it 
was just an " ism " that was going to put the world to 
rights without bothering them very much to help it 
along. They seemed to feel that salvation would 
come to them by reading Whitman and G. B. S., or 
even the mild and uncertain Mr. H. G. Wells. . . . 
Somebody some day was going to push a button, and, 
Presto ! life would be soft and comfortable for every- 
body. 

Of socialism in general, I confess myself incompe- 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 43 

tent to speak. It may, or it may not, be the solution 
of our acutely pressing social problems. But, if men 
are too cheap, greedy, and sordid to carry on a Republic 
honestly, preserving that equality of opportunity which 
this country was founded to secure, it must be men 
who need reforming! The more ideal the scheme of 
government, the less chance it has against the inherent 
crookedness of human nature. In the last analysis, we 
are not ruled by a " government," but by our own na- 
tures objectified, moulded into institutions. . . . 

Life is not, and is not meant to be, a cheap, easy 
matter. ... It is a grim, hard, desolate piece of work, 
shot through with all sorts of exquisite, wonderful 
compensating experiences. . . . 

The unshapen lump of raw human material that we 
are cannot take on lines of identity without the ham- 
mer, the chisel, the drill. . . . 

We are obviously here to be made into something 
by life. It seizes and shapes us. The process is some- 
times very pleasant, sometimes very painful. So be 
it. It is all in the day's work, and only the worthless 
will try to evade their proper share of either pain or 
pleasure. 

Everybody in this world is, of course, en- 
titled to some recreation and luxury, but it must 
be recreation in proportion to his or her means, 
having in mind a proper provision for the 
"rainy day/' which is another name for old age 
and illness. Some people can provide very little 



44 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

in this way, and, until succeeding generations 
have developed to a point where they are of 
more value to the world, that inability to mate- 
rially increase their earning power must continue. 

The young man who, on the threshold of life, 
earning ten or twelve dollars a week, insists upon 
buying ten-cent cigars and paying an Italian 
boot-black to have his boots polished, and who 
feels it incumbent upon him to hire a cc livery 
rig" once a week, is not a desirable kind of de- 
velopment. "The times are not hard, they are 
fast," is a common saying. 

In a recent message to the employees of the 
Rock Island Railroad, President Mudge said 
that a man who earns $1000 a year represents 
a capital of $25,000. He compared those em- 
ployees with a locomotive : — 

You may not have as much pull as a locomotive, 
but you ought to have as much push ; and you can 
last a lot longer and run a great deal further than the 
best engine ever built. Most of all, you can make 
yourself constantly worth more, while the locomotive 
is never worth a cent more than it was the day it was 
built. It rests with you to make your $25,000 valua- 
tion climb to $50,000, to $100,000, to $500,000. 
Select your food with care. Treat decently the body 
on which your mind depends for its strength and san- 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 45 

ity. Above all, feed your mind. Like the engine, you 
can't work unless you stay on the rails and keep where 
the boss can find you. And remember that no call- 
boy ever found an engine in a saloon, dive, or other 
place of that sort. 

There is one important need of the times, 
and we have been neglecting it, to some extent, 
on all sides. I refer to Discipline. 

The tendency to iconoclasm, fostered by agi- 
tators and people who believe they could rule 
the world better than it is governed by Divine 
Providence, has put a false and a lower value 
upon thrift and energy, enterprise and brains. 
Relations of employment or contract, which of 
necessity call for guidance by one man or party 
and obedience by another, are seriously inter- 
fered with by a growing unwillingness to abide 
by the true and natural requirements of such 
conditions. This generally results in a failure to 
deliver that which should reasonably be expected 
in the way of service or goods. A domestic serv- 
ant is frequently found to be wasting good ma- 
terial. Well-known writers on economics have 
stated that the amount of waste in New York 
City, mostly through this source, would feed 
the whole of Paris. A skilled laborer is not in- 



46 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

frequently found who, while agreeing to perform 
a certain piece of work, deliberately, or through 
lack of training, leaves it partially undone or 
done in a shiftless manner. Articles sold by re- 
tail concerns are not always what they are re- 
presented to be. The quality of goods produced 
by factories is often not up to the standard. A 
similar criticism may be made of the professions. 

Self-restraint, which is simply discipline ap- 
plied to self, must be cultivated. And this sug- 
gestion is not intended for any one class. I have 
always believed and frequently stated that if one 
cannot rely for the improvement of our condi- 
tions upon those who, by virtue of their educa- 
tion, prosperity, and standing, are qualified to 
set the proper example, we cannot expect very 
much from hoi polloi. There must be training. 
Training is discipline. It is applicable as well to 
self as to others and should apply to all classes 
alike. 

The universe itself is based upon a system 
established by the Creator. We are all subject 
to that system, and we cannot escape it. We 
can facilitate and assist, but the moment we op- 
pose its operation, we succumb. The seasons, 
the days and nights, the laws governing the re- 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 47 

currence and alternation of crops, those govern- 
ing animal life — all are fixed, immutable. 
* Discipline is natural, not arbitrary, as many 
seem to suppose. The highest type of ruler in 
this world, she who represents motherhood, 
commences almost the moment her offspring is 
born to exercise discipline. Because, first, it is 
natural; second, it develops character; third, 
some day that offspring will need to understand 
how to transmit that training to the succeeding 
generation. 

If each succeeding generation can be im- 
proved, even though slightly, over the preced- 
ing, we have, to say the least, gone a long way 
toward fulfilling man's destiny here below. If 
anybody believes that the world is misgoverned, 
let him take but a square mile and attempt to 
rule all the people and all the things in that 
small tract, with their conflicting interests and 
their constant needs. 

Nobody should fail to respect institutions 
which have stood the test of time. After years 
of turmoil, the Anglo-Saxon people, desiring to 
be freed from the necessity of individually 
bothering with affairs of state, selected from 
each of their districts a man who was better 



48 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

fitted than the majority to decide such ques- 
tions, and sent those representatives together 
to form the Witena gemot, or council of wise 
men. 

That institution stands in England to-day. 
There is no known trade or profession, from 
the clergy to the brewery, that is not there re- 
presented. The interests of the country have 
grown to vast proportions and cumbersome, 
but the institution still stands. England does 
not need a change in her form of government. 
No more does America. We want the best 
men, and we wanr honest men, in office and in 
power: a proper selection. 

The fact that there are some in power to-day 
who are unprincipled (which unfortunately is 
undeniable) is not due to the system of gov- 
ernment; it is due to the unwise choice of re- 
presentatives. This would be true under any 
other form of government, whether it be mon- 
archic, oligarchic, socialistic, or anarchistic. 

That which is at fault to-day is not funda- 
mental law; it is not the institutions reared 
thereon; it is not representative government; 
no one of these need be overthrown to bring 
about certain needed reforms. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 49 

"The people are not the law and the law is 
not the people." There never was a truer 
statement. "The law is the principle of justice 
governing the people. " Law rests far down 
below all mundane institutions. The principles 
of law exist regardless of those institutions. 
They are as inherent and as fixed as the prin- 
ciples of the physical world, and in every case 
where an attempt has been made to upset them 
the result has been turmoil and wreck. 

A method which is applicable for one purpose 
is not always to be applied for another. As Pre- 
sident Butler has pointed out, imagine all the 
people in Chicago convened to determine a de- 
tail of legislation or for the election of officers, 
and the picture is simply ridiculous. The old 
form of town meeting still exists in many places, 
but as soon as a town has grown into a com- 
mercial centre the exigencies demand a differ- 
ent form of government, namely, a representa- 
tive form. 

We have made long strides in this country 
toward the amelioration of certain conditions 
which sprang up like weeds and grew in spite 
of us. The best authorities believe that the 
world is improving, and that with the exercise 



50 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

of a little self-restraint we shall work the mat- 
ter out satisfactorily to all. But can anybody 
believe that the constant and inflammatory ut- 
terance of doctrines, held by the great majority 
of students of history and economics to be 
untenable, will bring this about? 

A work on sociology published in 1892, and 
entitled "Coming Horrors in America," de- 
clared: "There is war in America to-day." Its 
vituperative attack on the increase of wealth 
was and is insupportable. Nor are all enter- 
prises to be placed on one level. Agitators are 
wont to cry out about the "wrongs done by 
octopus formations," and then single out some 
one example as applying to all. Many of the 
trusts or combinations, and I dare say a great 
majority, do not come within the class which 
has wrought injury by unsound, unjust, and 
unlawful methods. 

Talcott Williams, formerly of the Philadelphia 
"Press," remarked in 1887, cc One third of the 
labor to-day is the creation of a century of 
American invention and enterprise under con- 
stitutional freedom." 

Injustice is not alone to be found on the 
capitalist side. William Rathbone Greg refers, 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 51 

for instance, to an early movement on the part 
of labor, having for its object to prevent bricks 
being used, excepting those made within cer- 
tain limits. How would this have affected 
people who made bricks in other localities ? 

Anybody who will take the trouble to read 
Charles Beard's description of labor conditions 
in England in 1760, and will then note the 
changes which have since taken place, — there and 
in America, — and who will trace down the gene- 
alogies of the farmer and the laborer of those 
days to and through the numerous branches 
of their descendants, will see what is going on 
in the world more clearly than by fixing his 
attention in hypnotic fashion solely upon the 
toilers of any particular period or locality. 
Every laborer may, by good work, by carefully 
husbanding his resources, and by opening to 
the succeeding generations the door of oppor- 
tunity, bring posterity up to a higher level. But 
there is only one way to do it; and that way 
involves the three elements enumerated: Dili- 
gent effort, thrift, and the development of the 
mental and moral faculties. They won't all give 
good work. Hence their usefulness is cut down, 
and their earnings correspondingly. They won't 



52 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

all save; therefore it cannot be avoided that 
some will remain dependents. 

It is encouraging, however, to note from the 
reports of savings banks — particularly since 
the establishment of the postal banks — that 
more money is saved to-day in a large or small 
way than ever before; and less sent to foreign 
countries. 

Another common failing is the tendency to 
believe in luck as a means to success. Ninety- 
nine out of every hundred of the unfortunates 
who ignore our universal rules of discipline at- 
tribute their failure to bad luck. 

Luck is a result, not a chance or a means. 
In greater or lesser degree good luck, which is 
success, is sure to follow proper preparation 
and execution. 

Chance exists in matters not governed by 
human agencies ; but even that may be prepared 
for. An earthquake is some part of the plan of 
the universe. We know not what part. We may 
perhaps in time foretell its coming, and pre- 
vent injurious consequences therefrom. A rock 
falls from an embankment and overturns a train. 
Human agency should have prevented. Sur- 
gery will in time prevent many deaths and 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 53 

lengthen many lives, now utterly beyond its 
control. 

A throw of dice may favor one or another — 
but given a perfect set of dice (which may be 
effected by human agency) and constant play, 
and the doctrine of chances will in time equalize 
the losses and gains. 

Success in this world is not to be acquired 
through the medium of luck, as the word is 
commonly used. Some barely succeed after 
hard study in a particular line. Others succeed 
in their line with less toil. But it is not due to 
luck, any more than it was luck which brought 
a part of the world's population to the pulpit 
and the forum and the laboratory, and left others 
in the fields or at the forge. 

Somewhere in the line of our Miltons and 
our Shakespeares and our Lincolns and our 
Websters and our Emersons and our Lowells, 
there was preparation for a successful life. And 
not in every case was it such a preparation or 
series of preparations as we are wont to deem 
necessary for success. 

A training properly assimilated, a wholesome 
life, with industry and thrift, will at least es- 
tablish a foundation for posterity. If that de- 



54 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

velopment be continued long enough, we shall 
one day see a man or woman who rises to the 
top with no more effort than is employed by a 
companion who never gets beyond the stage of 
"also ran." 

The same opportunity is open to all men to 
lay the cornerstone on which will sometime be 
reared that structure known as the successful 
man. Preparation, consistently followed through 
generation after generation, will at some time 
and in some form tell its tale. 

To reach success we must all be amenable to 
the rule of Discipline. How many men who 
follow a laborer's life have seen companions 
strike out into new countries and take up new 
pursuits ! Some stick and succeed. Others fail. 
Many return. Why ? Because they were either 
totally unprepared and would not or could not 
remain long enough to learn ; or, as is so fre- 
quently the case, would not listen to the de- 
mands of discipline and work themselves into 
better conditions. 

Those who succeed i do not reach their aim 
through luck — it is through discipline, and 
sometimes years of work and repression. But fol- 
lowed by success — in greater or lesser measure. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 55 

Does anybody doubt that hard work pro- 
perly applied will result in success ? 

If one does not know how to apply his work, 
there are always guides, mental and moral, who 
can assist; and who will, if the inquiry be made 
in earnest. There are many, unfortunately, who 
still believe that they can succeed by and through 
the medium of luck. 

It is the time for self-restraint. The country 
has had a long period of depression. We cannot 
cure unsatisfactory conditions or social maladies 
by nostrums. We need real and genuine doc- 
tors — not quacks. We need honest men in 
office; men who, having served and conserved, 
are qualified to lead. Doubtless, too, we need 
some supervision of vast interests which affect 
rich and poor alike. 

It is a time for calm, quiet consideration of 
fundamental principles. The arguments of 
would-be reformers in favor of a certain part 
of socialism, and as to the rights of labor, and 
for laws to fix a reasonable limit on aggregations 
of capital, may be to a great extent concurred in 
by all. We have already many of the best of 
those principles established and recognized. 
Our almshouses, our wards' courts, our proba- 



56 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

tion officers, our district nursing and settlement 
work, are all socialistic in their very essence. 

A pure democracy, however, would never suc- 
ceed. It has been attempted in a small way by 
men of intellect, with sincerity of purpose ; and 
abandoned by them. 

The New York " Commercial " comments on 
socialistic experiment : — 

A LITTLE JOURNEY IN SOCIALISM 

This Milwaukee experiment in socialistic rule was 
tried under conditions as favorable for the test as could 
possibly be asked. Mayor Seidel was a man of the 
highest reputation in private life, and he took office 
filled with determination to purify the city administra- 
tion and deal honestly by all men. But conditions were 
too much for him. He found, to his disgust, that his 
socialist fellow office-holders and his supporters were 
as greedy for the spoils of office as the worst machine 
politicians and ward-heelers of the old parties had ever 
been. He could not keep down expenses and his spec- 
ial board of civic economy was the most costly and 
useless that Milwaukee ever saw or paid. He could get 
no support from those who had put him in the mayor's 
chair unless]he paid them with offices or jobs at the city's 
expense. Socialistic ideas did not work out in practice. 

If accumulation of capital is objected to, it is 
only fair to give others a right to believe as they 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 57 

prefer — and let those who will work, save and 
invest, and protect themselves and their families. 
Indeed, protect every person who will not exer- 
cise thrift. 

If reasonable accumulations of capital are justi- 
fiable, let the reformer urge the followers of so- 
cialism to save some of the millions wasted in 
strikes and put them into enterprises which can 
be managed after their own methods. This will 
free the socialistic adherents from the tram- 
mels of employment, as nearly as they can be 
freed. 

I quote again from the New York " Com- 
mercial": — 

If the Industrial Workers of the World wish to ac- 
quire the tools of manufacture and wholly eliminate 
capital, they can try the experiment at once without 
going through all the agony of strikes and semi-starva- 
tion. The Lawrence strike cost the employees or their 
trade organization a very large sum, certainly not less 
than half a million dollars. That sum would buy or 
build complete a fairly large mill in which the social- 
ists could test the possibilities of their plan. Their 
plan of campaign is to keep on striking until capital quits, 
but they need not waste time over that sort of a fight. 

Some important trades require comparatively little 
capital for mechanical equipment. The clothing trade 
is one of these. Let these socialists save up a little 



58 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

money to start a business instead of a strike. They can 
buy all the sewing-machines and other equipment 
needed for less than what a month of idleness in a 
strike will cost. They can buy goods almost from hand 
to mouth, and, when they have finished the clothing, 
they will know just how much of the selling price be- 
longs to labor and capital combined, for it will all be 
theirs. 

If some genius in the band of workers keeps abreast 
of the fashions and designs patterns that sell well they 
may be successful. But at this point human nature is 
almost sure to step in. That gifted designer will real- 
ize that a large measure of the success of the enter- 
prise is due to the exercise of his talents. Then, if he 
is not a superman, he will demand a larger share of the 
profits than each of the other workers in common gets. 
He will demand the market price of his work and will 
go elsewhere if his demands are refused. That is some- 
thing with which these dreamers do not reckon now, 
but they will find out that all men are not equal, and 
that some are worth more than others, just as capital 
has done, before they have been in the business very 
long. 

A band of socialists might easily start a silk mill on 
this plan. One or two good dress patterns that caught 
the fancy of the women would make them prosperous 
for the time being. These successful patterns would 
be the survival of the fittest of a large number. But in 
the next season if the best selling patterns were again 
designed by the man whose work had scored a hit be- 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 59 

fore, his opinion of his value would rise and he would 
cease to be a socialist, so far as consenting to an equal 
distribution of profits is concerned. 

There are many trades in which the experiment can 
be tried. Success would be welcome, for the ideal state 
of society is one in which all work and receive the full 
fruits of their labor. But the world has never yet got 
along without the directing mind, and the world has 
seen few leaders who were content with private's pay 
for very long. Clarence Darrow, the favored counsel 
of the Industrial Workers of the World for years, was 
careful to get his hands on the fifty thousand dollar re- 
tainer fee before the McNamara trial began. That is 
why applied socialism is an impossibility. It conflicts 
with human nature. 

A prominent Boston paper suggests an 

I. W. W. COLONY 

There should not be objection if, as reported, the 
I. W. W. propose to cross the Mexican line and set- 
tle in Lower California for the purpose of trying to put 
in operation their special plans as to industry and gov- 
ernment. Let them form their own community and 
achieve, if they can, " an equal division of toil and pro- 
fits " in accordance with their ideals. 

The community would be a social experiment in- 
teresting for the instruction of the world. Its opera- 
tion along social and industrial lines would be given 
due publicity and an accurate idea could be formed 
by the public as to the practical value of the plan. 



60 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

We might endeavor to convince some wealthy 
philanthropist that such an experiment would be 
worth while ; prevailing upon him to provide 
the funds necessary to establish such a colony. 

Every fair-minded person recognizes a labor 
union as an institution entirely as justifiable as 
a partnership or a corporation or an insurance 
company. A socialistic colony would be granted 
full consideration by the world. We have rather 
drastic laws concerning aggregations of capital 
— perhaps not yet applied at just the right 
turn of the wheel or perhaps not yet applied 
rigidly enough. We can better the laws and 
they will be bettered; but in the evolution 
thereof is it not wiser to leave out irritating 
remedies and inflammatory utterances ? See how 
this uprising against discipline is affecting not 
only the working-man but the growing genera- 
tions. Here are two boys in California, aged 
fifteen and thirteen, who murdered their father, 
took all the money from his pockets, loaded 
the body on a mud-sled, and hauled it home. 
Both admitted that their father had been kind 
to them and that they had no reason to kill him 
except that he had compelled them to go to 
school, and " they were tired of being bossed!" 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 61 

What would happen if in any large city the 
crowds at the street crossings were at the mercy 
of teamsters and drivers, instead of being pro- 
tected by the system of discipline, now common 
enough, which places traffic subject to instant 
check simply by the raising of a policeman's 
hand? 

Where everybody is attempting to govern, 
there is no discipline and no self-restraint, and, 
naturally, no progress. 

As Mr. Price Collier says, in his admirable 
book, "The West in the East," at page 395, 
chapter on China : — 

One has only to see something of these vast stretches 
of territory without railroads, without telegraph offices, 
and with few post-offices, to learn how much we owe 
to our own railroads for their efficiency as moral 
agents. Leaving out of the count any question of 
commerce, the United States to-day would be a great 
federal political and moral chaos without its railroads ; 
and yet I have never heard them alluded to even as 
having any ethical value. It is right to debate these 
questions whether in a republic or in China. The 
value of the debate, however, depends altogether upon 
the tone and temper of the discussion. I believe in 
insurgency. Insurgency is the only political or social 
purgative of any value in a democracy ; but the insur- 
gent must be neither a fanatic nor a fakir; he is, alas, 



62 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

all too often one or the other ; and America has suf- 
fered of late from a veritable plague of left-handed 
Catos. Therefore, I counsel my readers to adopt 
my method. As an observer, as a traveller, as a stu- 
dent, I know of no instrument of criticism so helpful 
as sympathy. You must like a man to get out of 
him the best he has to give. Mere denunciation is a 
weapon of the ethical age, of the Eocene lemur, and 
the calcareous sponge. 

The insurgent must be neither a fanatic nor a fakir! 

The present turmoil in political, sociological 
and commercial fields is at least partly due to 
the fanatical reformer. Killing the goose that 
lays the golden eggs is not the only way to 
demonstrate short-sightedness ; — it is enough 
if she is chased so hard she will not lay. What 
should we get if these agitators had full sway ? 

What, for example, of the dogma so often 
used by them : that human rights must be put 
above property rights. This means, I presume, 
that the rights of the men who work by hand 
are paramount at all times, in all ways, and for 
all purposes, to the rights of the men who earn 
their living by their brains. Is this distinction 
sound? Are the rights of the laborer para- 
mount to all others ? Are not property rights 
human rights ? 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 63 

Suppose a carpenter, for example, has been 
energetic and thrifty, and has laid aside enough 
money to build and provide his family with a 
home. Now suppose a recent arrival from a 
foreign shore who has done the manual work 
for this householder demands as of right to 
share his house with him. Would the principle 
hold true that, inasmuch as the recent arrival 
has done all the work, he is entitled as of right 
to be taken in and indefinitely housed ? This 
conclusion would seem to arise from the con- 
tention that the product of the laborer be- 
longs, all of it, to him. The householder, I dare 
say, would contend that the product of his 
former labor, that which he has saved and in- 
vested in a home, still belonged to himself. 

If an appeal to charity were at the basis of 
the demands of these agitators, we should have 
a slightly different problem, but their demands 
are based upon presupposed inherent right. Per- 
haps some one of them will show what the rights 
and duties are in the case just cited. Should the 
carpenter share his new house with the laborer 
or should he give it up to him entirely ? 

Put a wise and thrifty man without capital on 
virgin soil and he will find the tools to develop 



64 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

it. What does he do with his first crop ? Fol- 
lowing true business instinct, after satisfying the 
temporary needs of himself and his family, he 
lays aside the surplus, and founds his capital. 
The next year he perhaps hires some labor and 
increases the production, and increases his cap- 
ital. In time he has enough laid by to last him 
through life. Does that capital belong to those 
who may have assisted him for hire ? 

Suppose with those savings the farmer builds 
a railroad through his farm and to the market 
town. Leaving out all question of dishonesty 
and graft, and assuming simply a road a few 
miles long, enough to enable the people along 
its line to market their produce, and assuming 
no municipal aid and no bonds or stocks issued ; 
does that railroad belong to the men who actu- 
ally did the laying of the rails, and who took 
wages therefor because they had not the brains, 
ability, and perseverance to do as did the pioneer 
of the country, the founder of the railroad? If 
to the laborers, do you expect to have many 
railroads built? If to the investor, then what 
about the principle of all wealth belonging to 
the laborer? 

We are told by certain theorists that wealth, 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 65 

the product of certain elements, belongs all of it 
to labor. These theorists overlook the fact that 
the factors of production of to-day's wealth may 
have existed in one person. Take the case of 
the individual who starts his own factory and by 
himself builds up a business which results in 
the employment of thousands of others. Take 
Edison, who, by means of brains and hard work, 
has created devices which will benefit the world 
as long as it lasts. Does the property which 
represents the investment of the earnings of 
those two men belong all of it to labor ? It was 
created by brains and energy combined with 
hard work, but it was not and never could have 
been created by labor alone. 

Labor does not create all wealth. It is due 
to brains and labor ; generally assisted by capi- 
tal, which is the accumulation of brains and 
labor previously applied. So the proposition 
resolves itself into this : brains and labor create 
wealth ; brains, labor, and wealth combined cre- 
ate more wealth ; and so on ad infinitum. 

If, when enterprises are commenced, labor 
should state : "We shall claim the entire result 
of this combination of brains and labor and 
capital," does the social reformer or anybody 



66 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

else believe that capital and brains would con- 
tinue hand in hand with labor? The country 
would go on without those investments ; would 
be just that much less wealthy ; or at least 
capital and brains would furnish their own la- 
bor. 

Agitators are demanding that labor shall be 
the sole judge of who shall work and how much 
they shall work, and how much they shall re- 
ceive as their share of the product. In other 
words, they say, " Mr. Brains, you continue to 
conduct this business and we will say how much 
we will give you as your share." 

As a matter of fact, the link connecting cap- 
ital and labor is in every way a contractual one. 
And that means a mutual relation ; an agree- 
ment between two or more parties. 

Let us have something definite, then, in the 
way of a plan to reconcile the differences ex- 
isting between these two parties. Let us be 
told what are the demands ; what are the limits ; 
what is a fair division ; what is an unfair accu- 
mulation. Let us be shown how we can adopt 
any new system with justice to all. Then, and 
only then, can anybody determine whether it is 
desirable to combine his brains with the labor 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 67 

of others, or preferably to combine them with 
his own labor as was done in old colony times. 

And right here, as has before been observed, 
arises much of the trouble of the present time. 
The author has heard of but one man who ex- 
pressed himself definitely on the point of what 
would be a reasonable demand by laboring-men. 
One case came to his attention, quite recently, 
where a laborer stated that when he should be 
able to work " five hours a day for five dollars 
a day, five days in the week," he thought he 
might be satisfied. And this estimate was made 
without reference to the age, size, and precari- 
ousness of the business; or its gross earnings; 
or the number of employees ; or the fact that 
the work performed by this particular man was 
purely manual. 

Mr. John Beattie Crozier, in his Reconstruc- 
tion of Political Economy, entitled " The Wheel 
of Wealth," at page 491, says : — 

The question of Value, even on its purely product- 
ive side, is not one of how many units of time you 
are at work, but of how many units of product you 
can turn out in a given time — quite a different mat- 
ter. For it is the units of product in a given time which 
alone the capitalist who is entering on any industrial 
enterprise has to consider in framing his estimates; and 



68 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

it is precisely what the labourers would themselves 
have to consider if they abolished the capitalists to- 
morrow, and owned and worked the land, machinery, 
railways, and other instruments of production them- 
selves ; — as they would soon discover when they en- 
tered into competition with other nations for the world's 
trade, however much they might be content at home 
to share the product between themselves according to 
the mere time of labour spent on it. For observe, if 
the same product could be turned out by a newly in- 
vented machine in half the time that they would take 
to make it, by what human device could they sell 
their product in the open market unless they consented 
to sell it at half its former price ? And what would 
this mean but that they would have now to accept 
half the wages for their labour-time that they were 
getting before ? They would have been " exploited," in 
a word, by the new machine which the inventor had 
sold to a rival nation, as neatly and effectually as if it 
had been the hated capitalists themselves who had 
done it. And if they still insisted on having their pound 
of flesh whatever should befall, and proceeded next 
to put the thumb-screw on the inventor of the machine 
to force him to give it over to them instead of to their 
rivals, on the usual terms of the u labour-time " he 
had spent on it, and no more, they would now be ex- 
ploiting the inventor in turn as much as ever the cap- 
italists had exploited them. But if the inventor, de- 
frauded of his due, should strike work and refuse to 
invent, and they should then proceed, like King John, 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 69 

to metaphorically " draw his teeth " for him one by 
one until he consented to present them with the con- 
tents of his brain, how would their tyranny differ from 
that of the capitalist-masters under whom they now 
groan and against whom they cry to Heaven for jus- 
tice ? But let me not be misunderstood. For did they 
now turn round and give back to the inventors and 
brain-workers, in honour, authority, prestige, and es- 
teem, what they had expropriated from them in wealth, 
they would, in my judgment, have struck on a con- 
stitution of economic society as nearly perfect as on 
this side of the millenium we are ever likely to see. 
They would then have given their really "great men," 
in Carlyle's sense of the term, the place of honour 
and initiative. But would they do this ? Not they : on 
the contrary, they would give the chief seats at their 
feasts to the u wind-bags " and coiners of phrases, 
the platitudinarians, and be-puffed mediocrities, — 
especially if they were good " sportsmen," footballers, 
cricketers, or what-not, as well, — and that, too, in 
the really sincere belief t;hat these were their " great 
men." For in themselves the miscellaneous masses 
of men in any nation are nothing, a tail of ciphers 
merely; they can imagine nothing, invent nothing, do 
nothing great, however much they may beat their 
brains for it ; — this is the prerogative of individuals 
alone, who are born in every rank, and can come only 
by what the theologians call " the Grace of God." 
Were you to pack all the ordinary chess-players of 
the world into the Albert Hall, not all their combined 



7 o WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

heads put together, with their vote taken on each 
move before it was made, could get even within sight 
of a " draw " from one of the great masters of the 
game. And it is the same with the game of War, of 
Poetry, of Music, of Art, of Mathematics, of Philo- 
sophy, of Religion, or of intellectual penetration gen- 
erally in any department of thought or life ; or even, 
if you will, down to billiard-players, cricketers, and 
the really great " sportsmen " in every line. The great 
players are always individuals, always uniques, with 
unbridgeable gulfs between them and the rest of the 
world; they are the only dynamical forces of the world; 
the rest are but mere statical accompaniments and 
chorus, mere ballast to keep the ship steady, mere 
critics, like those who surround a cricket or football 
field, with just ability enough to decide on the merits 
of the great players, but not able to play themselves, 
and whose function it is either to hiss or applaud. So 
that if in this game of Industry any nation were so 
rash as to turn out the men who discover, invent, or- 
ganize, and legislate for its future, or to rob them of 
their just rewards, and to put a miscellaneous herd 
of navvies, coal-heavers, and ordinary workmen in 
their place, it would speedily find itself overrun, routed, 
and reduced to a tributary and dependent position by 
the first great nation that came along, which, like Ja- 
pan, gave to its great men a free hand. And this 
brings us at once to the crux of the Marxian Social- 
ism, both as to its truth and its falsity. Its falsity con- 
sists in its not seeing that while the workmen are 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 71 

exploited directly by the capitalists who own the pis- 
tols and pull the triggers, they are really made to stand 
and deliver by the pistols, — that is to say, by the 
machinery, — which can do the work of thousands 
of men in a given unit of time ; and that this is the 
work of the great scientists, inventors, and organizers, 
and not of the capitalists or of the workmen them- 
selves ; and that if you are going to raise the question 
of justice, according to the ordinarily accepted stand- 
ards, it is to these that the a surplus product" belongs. 

It has been suggested many times that busi- 
ness and politics should be divorced. The same 
remedy would facilitate the solution of the ques- 
tion we are now considering. And we might 
go further and remove it from the field occupied 
by that extraordinary class of deep thinkers, the 
fanatical agitators. 

No one of these critics of the times seems to 
have provided a practical remedy for that of 
which they complain, viz., the increasing dis- 
parity between capital and labor. 

Assuming that their complaint is well founded, 
and that natural developments and the influence 
of trade unions are not sufficiently effective, it 
remains to seek some new method for lessening 
this breach. 

Human nature cannot be changed greatly, 



72 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

except as it is improved. Labor will always exist 
in some form and to some extent. It seems al- 
most useless to attempt to bring about the desid- 
eratum by regulations aimed at the producing 
end. The only way in which wages can be much 
further increased, in nearly all cases to-day, is by 
a higher scale of prices for the production. And 
that scale will depend upon the demand for that 
production. When prices soar to a point where 
demand ceases, the point of absorption is 
reached. 

Goldwin Smith, in his little treatise on cc La- 
bour and Capital/ ' published in 1907, very aptly 
remarks : — 

The capitalist, it is important to observe, though 
the organizer, director, and paymaster, is not the real 
employer. The real employer is the purchaser of the 
goods, who cannot be forced by any strike or pressure 
to give more for the goods than he chooses and can 
afford. Carried beyond a certain point, therefore, pres- 
sure for an increased wage must either fail or break 
the trade. 

And he further reminds us, that labor by 
its constant demands is increasing the cost of 
living to itself as well as to the rest of the 
public. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 73 

You will never succeed in an arbitrary de- 
mand for higher wages after you reach the nat- 
ural point of absorption. You can form your own 
colonies and found your own industries ; and, 
if you have the good faith and charity which you 
demand in others, you may succeed. The his- 
tory of cooperative effort does not show invari- 
able success. And you must not overlook the 
stern fact that there are three elements necessary 
to the creation of wealth : production ; surplus 
commodities; and a purchaser for the surplus. 
You are going too far when you demand that 
industries already established shall be set back 
some centuries; and that the earnings of others 
who have preceded you shall be applied to the 
founding of your colonies. In all fairness, you 
cannot walk in and, without due process of law, 
arbitrarily take possession of property which 
other citizens have acquired. 

You can, however, tax wealth. You must free 
wealth-producing property from heavy burdens 
of taxation and let the weight fall elsewhere- 
Otherwise, you are stifling enterprise and thrift, 
just as when you over-regulate the actual ele- 
ments of production. And it is not enough, in 
any form of taxation, merely to provide funds 



74 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

for government uses. Those funds must be in- 
telligently devoted to the greatest needs of the 
people. 

In various parts of the world, provisions such 
as succession taxes and the meretricious income 
tax, have provided a means for partially pre- 
venting great accumulations of wealth. But 
that alone does not seem fully to answer the 
demands of the reformer. Because of the fact, 
probably, that, while one extreme is cut down, 
the other is not correspondingly or sufficiently 
uplifted. 

There is no panacea, doubtless, for all of the 
troubles of the civic body. No one remedy will 
suffice. Gradually to allay irritation, by methods 
carefully considered in the full light of reason, 
is the most we can hope to do in the line of 
social therapeutics. 

But I venture to ask the Reform-Agitator 
if there might not be some advantage gained 
for the cause by changing the point of attack. 
By partially abandoning the onslaught upon the 
agents of production, and upon the existing 
method of distribution of profits, and by taking 
up the question of the uses of those profits. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 75 

Both capital and labor to-day contend that 
they respectively do not receive the share to 
which they are entitled out of joint earnings. 
Suppose the question of division of earnings be 
left to agreement of the parties. Capital freed 
from unnecessary stigma. Labor represented by 
the Unions. Both influenced by the natural law 
of supply and demand ; and both protected at 
all times by State and Federal Commissions. 
And suppose we consider the effect of legislation 
tending to regulate unwarranted and unwise use 
of the shares received by each. Indeed, the use 
of wealth in general. 

It can be assumed that no one will disagree 
as to the disadvantage of property and pecuniary 
waste, either by government or individual. The 
elimination, by rational legislative methods, of 
unnecessary waste, might be made a very strong 
factor in the improvement and uplifting of labor 
conditions. I do not for one moment mean to 
advocate the establishment of sumptuary laws, 
strictly speaking ; i.e., laws covering all articles 
of consumption, or all expenses of living. 

For present purposes it may be left to the 
agitator himself, relying on his clear understand- 
ing and good faith in the premises, to say to 



76 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

what extent labor ought to protect itself and be 
protected in the line of economy of living. As 
to capital, while I believe that it does not in all 
cases receive too great a share of the profits of 
production, I do not hesitate to claim that it 
wastes altogether too much of that share. To 
the maxim, " It is just to tax the wealthy in 
proportion to their wealth," I would add, " And 
it is just to tax them in accordance with the way 
in which they use that wealth." 

Can we save a part of the wealth now wasted 
and utilize it for the benefit of the people as a 
whole, and particularly the laboring-class ? We 
can do it, certainly. A higher rate of taxation 
on luxuries would diminish the use of that kind 
of property ; which use destroys just so much 
of the product of labor and capital — just so 
much wealth. And, at the same time, the in- 
come received from the tax levied on such lux- 
uries as might still be used could form a very 
useful fund. 

Money not spent in that way would naturally 
drift into investment channels. Many people 
would be deterred, to some extent, from falling 
into extravagant ways of living. 

Of course, the taxation of luxuries falls within 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 77 

that class of legislation known as " sumptuary 
laws." Yet, if restricted to pure luxuries^ no 
real injury perhaps would come to any person 
by such a measure. Luxury was styled by one 
of the great English essayists as "artificial 
poverty." 

There seems to be no valid reason why laws 
concerning the wasting of property should not 
be applicable generally as well as specially. We 
have always had provisions whereby an indi- 
vidual can be restrained and placed under guar- 
dianship by a chancery court, upon its being 
evident that he is squandering his money and 
is likely to become a charge upon the com- 
munity. 

Not for precisely the same reason, but for the 
purpose of preventing waste to the community 
and preserving the common wealth, pure lux- 
uries might very legitimately be the object of a 
carefully considered system of taxation. 

The result of increased taxation on articles 
which have no particular usefulness — such as 
wines and liquors and pleasure vehicles, or any 
other commodity which disappears with the use 
thereof, leaving nothing but the satisfaction of 
having had it — might show an advantage to 



78 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

all classes, even to the capitalist; certainly to 
the State and the people as a whole ; and to the 
laboring-classes, beyond question, if the funds 
raised by taxation were properly used after be- 
ing collected. 

There would be no material, permanent bene- 
fit to labor from the mere increase in taxes col- 
lected. It would be of no lasting benefit to pay 
it out in wages. It might answer the demands 
of the reformer if the funds could be invested 
in profitable industries with State and Labor as 
employer and employee, respectively. And there 
would be an increase in the general wealth. 
Those industries might be confined at first to 
the production of certain actual necessities of 
life. 

Such an arrangement would create a com- 
petition between individual and state enter- 
prises, which might work to the advantage of 
both, and doubtless to the benefit of the con- 
sumer. 

It is well known that state ownership, wher- 
ever it constitutes a monopoly, is thoroughly 
unsatisfactory. Complaints are frequent enough, 
nowadays, regarding the quality of commodities 
and services, made and rendered by individuals. 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 79 

By a system which would put both state and 
individual producers on their merits, we might 
eliminate some of the defects of state owner- 
ship, make costs of production and prices of 
commodities more stable, and, at the same time, 
obtain better values. 

It remains to be seen, of course, what the 
attitude would be of the numerous people af- 
fected by such an arrangement. Production and 
consumption would be decreased in the case of 
wines and liquors and cigars ; automobiles and 
carriages ; silks and gems. The breeding and 
sale of horses and dogs and fine grades of cat- 
tle would fall off. And preserves for game and 
birds and fish would be neglected. And all the 
pursuits that appertain to the few illustrations 
given above would be materially affected. The 
thousands and thousands of people who derive 
their living from those various industries ; the 
grape and tobacco growers and their assistants; 
workmen in automobile and carriage factories; 
miners of precious stones; lapidaries; hunters 
and taxidermists ; and retail dealers in all these 
lines ; as well as^transportation companies, which 
are fed upon those commodities — all would 
be affected. 



80 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

Can they be reconciled ? 

You must not forget the interests of those 
people who use, and those who produce, the 
articles aimed at in the plan outlined. If a per- 
son knows that he is not to be allowed to de- 
rive a certain amount of satisfaction from the 
results of the expenditure of his energies, he 
will not apply himself with the same ardor to 
accomplish and attain those results. 

The existence and development of all life in nature 
depends upon the persistent activity and energy with 
which every living thing struggles for life ; and in or- 
der to stimulate and secure this activity and energy, na- 
ture guarantees to equal energies or abilities equal re- 
wards, and to superior ability greater rewards ; and the 
certainty of these impartial rewards — in other words, 
absolute justice — is the great stimulus of nature, with- 
out which the struggle would cease, and with it all 
life. In short, Omnipotence itself does not dispense with 
justice ; neither can man. 

With man the struggle for life is the struggle for 
wealth, which is the means of life. By wealth, we do 
not mean exclusively money, but all those acquisitions 
which serve to clothe, feed, or protect man, for which 
money is an equivalent. Without wealth man must 
perish ; with it he lives, and his prosperity, comfort, 
and happiness are in proportion to the amount of wealth 
he acquires. Every man, therefore, seeks wealth ; and 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 81 

the more certainly that equal energies, under equal 
circumstances, secure equal rewards, — in other words, 
equal wealth, — the greater will be the effort of each 
individual to acquire, by doubled energy and activity, 
doubled rewards. The more this effort increases, the 
more universal it becomes, so much greater is the 
activity and prosperity of society. (Opening theme in 
a treatise on taxation by William Minot, Jr., published 
in 1877.) 

The luxury tax has fallen into desuetude ; 
but in 1872, under the title, " Die Luxussteuer 
als Correctiv der Einkommensteuer," Dr. Leon 
Ritter von Bilinski, of the University of Lem- 
berg, quite thoroughly reviewed the subject ; 
and seemed to feel that the tax would be heard 
of again. He regarded its existence in the early 
period of statehood as unnecessary, but thought 
it might, at some time in the future, be restored. 
He observed that there is no subject of finance- 
craft which should be handled so cautiously and 
so firmly as the luxury tax. And it was his opin- 
ion, that, while it is rather mischievous for the 
State to watch the expenses of its citizens for 
service, equipages, and the like, yet a tax reform 
such as seemed necessary in certain countries 
would be possible by means of a proper luxury 
tax. That such a method would permit the re- 



82 WHAT ARE THE DEMANDS OF 

moval of various taxes now imposed : among 
others, " the consumers' tax on articles that we 
all individually recognize as necessaries. " 

He goes on to say, " In order that such a 
grand reform shall ever be established, people 
must be convinced that it really would be well 
to levy a luxury tax " ; and, " it should have 
not only a financial but a high social-political 
meaning." He states that the object of his 
work has been " to give an impetus toward con- 
vincing people and to show a way of establish- 
ing financial reform, and to give a scientific 
financial solution of the social question." 

If it is contended, as it is, that the use of the power 
of taxation for purposes other than the collection of 
revenue finds justification in the fact that "the law- 
maker must look far enough beyond the general pur- 
pose to satisfy himself how any proposed levy is likely 
to affect the general good," a sufficient answer to such 
contention would seem to be that the general good is 
always best subserved by doing what is exactly right, 
and not what is expedient. (David Ames Wells, 
"Theory and Practice of Taxation," at page 256.) 

The prejudice against any form of sumptuary 
laws is widespread and deep-rooted. And the 
same prejudice exists against interference with 
natural laws of trade. The plan suggested is 



THE REFORM-AGITATOR 83 

intended to be an inquiry — nothing more. It 
would open the door to " socialism," and con- 
siderable doubt arises as to its feasibility. No 
scheme for state ownership of industries would 
check the demand for higher wages. A dead- 
lock might in time be created between even the 
laborers themselves in their various lines. And 
the difficulties of to-day, of a practical nature, 
would still be encountered. 

If the Reforming- Agitator has a plan which 
will lift the country out of the slough of de- 
spond in which it has been floundering, he 
should offer it without further delay. 

What are his demands and where do they 
lead? 



JUL 23 W 2 



